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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24777589">Hope</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotthebiggayquelquefois/pseuds/gotthebiggayquelquefois'>gotthebiggayquelquefois</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The X-Files</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s04e20 Small Potatoes, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Stakeout, it's just fluff</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 08:41:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,877</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24777589</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/gotthebiggayquelquefois/pseuds/gotthebiggayquelquefois</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder and Scully stakeout a bar after the "Eddie Van Blundht" incident.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Fox Mulder &amp; Dana Scully, Fox Mulder/Dana Scully</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Hope</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i hope this is cute. i thought it would be. also, there is so much backstory here. i can't write</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"I'll just be a minute Mulder. I just want to get changed, and then we can go."</p><p>"Will you be quick?  Skinner told us we had to be there for eight. That's in twenty minutes."</p><p>"The bar is five minutes from my apartment Mulder, we'll be fine. Since when you cared about what Skinner told us anyway?"</p><p>"I don't care, but the guy's been coming down on me extra hard recently. I think he's still made at me - well Van Blundht - for misspelling the I in FBI."</p><p>"He told you about that?"</p><p>"He was very upset about it."</p><p>"Well I'll only be a minute. I have an outfit in mind." Mulder grinned at the thought of seeing Scully in something over than her usual pantsuits. He expected she'd probably just take off her jacket and change her shoes. Mulder pulled into the spot right outside Scully's apartment, and then turned to her. "Well I'll just wait here," Mulder said, tapping his hand on the dashboard. "Just come in with me," Scully said, before stepping out of the car.</p><p>"Scully," Mulder said, laughing a little suggestively.</p><p>"Don't be disgusting," Scully said, shooting him a look over the top of the car. "I just need someone to tell me if the outfit is too casual. I practically only ever wear work clothes or pyjamas. I don't know where the line is." Mulder felt a small pang of guilt. He knew that it was his fault that Scully didn't have that life where she was wearing something other than work clothes or pyjamas. Most weekends he was dragging her off to some godforsaken town to investigate vampires or shape-shifting aliens, and as much as he loved that, he was painfully aware of the fact that it didn't give Scully a chance to have a life. As far as he knew, she'd only been on two dates since they started working together. The first one was while they were on that Jersey Devil case - which he'd derailed.</p><p> </p><p>The second one was not long after she returned from her abduction two years ago. Scully had wanted to get her life back on track when she returned, but the guy she'd been on a date with hadn't been the nicest. That's how Scully put it when she called him at midnight, but from what Scully later told him, not being the nicest translated to him making fun of her for being a quote on quote "prudish bitch with no life". Mulder had been so mad he'd considered using the FBI's database to find that son of a bitch's address and... Well he decided that corruption wasn't exactly the route he wanted to go down. Yet Mulder somehow felt responsible for that date going wrong too. He had seen how happy and full of life she'd been when she started working with him. Hell, he'd even met her boyfriend, Ethan something. They'd seemed happy together. But about six months later, he'd found out that they'd broken up because Scully was "working too much". </p><p> </p><p>So deep down, he always felt responsible for those times that Scully would make remarks about being lonely, or wishing she had someone to be her date to some sort of FBI event. Mulder didn't know how to properly communicate the years of guilt while he watched Scully unlock her front door, so he stayed silent, thinking about all the opportunities she'd missed because of him. He was still thinking about that while he was stood in Scully's living room, awkwardly waiting for her to get changed. He looked around, trying to distract himself from his thoughts. Her apartment was so Scully. It was so homely, it looked as if it should be lived in more. But the truth was that Scully spent more nights in dirty motel rooms than in this apartment. Just as Mulder was about to relapse into guilt, his eyes focused on a framed photo strip on Scully's coffee table. He walked over, and picked it up, grinning when he saw what the photos were of. </p><p> </p><p>The FBI Christmas Party was an event that Mulder normally despised and avoided like the plague. However, when Scully had sadly remarked about having no one to go with just weeks after she told him she'd broken up with Ethan, he decided it was best to go along. He'd stopped short of asking her. By this point, Mulder was well aware of the crush (he hated calling it that) he had on Scully. But she'd just broken up with Ethan, and he saw how sad she was that he wouldn't be going with her. But he knew that she wasn't really close with many people in their department, and that Christmas parties were terrible places to be alone. So, he'd put on his nice jeans and a formal shirt - the dress code at this thing was pretty loose - and showed up. It was entirely worth it to see Scully wearing jeans and a terrible, but incredibly fluffy, Christmas jumper with elves on it. She had seemed happy to see him, and even insisted that he come to the photo booth with her. Outside of it was a box of "silly props" that you were supposed to use. </p><p> </p><p>By this point they were both so drunk that they had helped themselves to a generous amount of props from the box. They took two rounds of four photos with the props. Fake moustaches, monocles, cowboy hats and feather boas appeared in the photos, alongside their smiling, drunk faces. They'd returned the props to the box, when Mulder grabbed Scully's hand and said, "Let's do some without the props."</p><p>"Okay," Scully giggled, and followed him back into the booth. By this point, half the FBI agents in this bar were staring at them, no doubt speculating about what the FBI's most controversial partners could be getting up to in such a tiny booth. Mulder fed the machine a dollar, and they waited for the green light to come on. "I like a man who pays," Scully said, jokingly, laying her hand on Mulder's chest. Mulder looked at her confusedly, as Scully had previously specified a preference for splitting the bill or at least paying for alternate dates. Scully quickly moved her hand, interpreting Mulder's confused face as him being put off. Just as she moved her hand, the light flashed, and they both realised they looked very strange in their first photo.</p><p> </p><p>They tried to look nicer in the second one, both smiling at the camera. For the next one, Mulder slid one arm around Scully and put a pair of bunny ears up behind her head. They both glowed inside from the sudden proximity. As the last photo was taken, Mulder leaned in and pressed a slightly messy kiss to Scully's cheek. The old black and white camera didn't properly capture the blush spreading across Scully's cheeks, but Mulder certainly saw it. They quickly stumbled out of the booth, both blushing heavily, which elicited a couple of whistles from their equally drunk colleagues. Mulder bent down to pick up their pictures and grinned at the odd combination of photos. Scully quickly grabbed the row of photos from his hand, mumbling something about wanting to keep them with the others. She carefully put them in her bag along with the other two rows. </p><p> </p><p>The photo frame now contained the three strips of photos squished together, with the date written at the bottom in Scully's handwriting. "That is so Scully," Mulder thought to himself as he placed the photo frame back down on the counter. Just as he did that, Scully hurried in, clearly looking for something. </p><p> </p><p>"Mulder have you seen my boots?" she said, looking around. </p><p>"Woah," Mulder laughed, very obviously checking Scully out. </p><p>"What?" Scully said, still looking around.</p><p>"Your outfit," Mulder said. </p><p>"What, do you think it's inappropriate?" Scully said, finally standing still.</p><p>"No, it's very appropriate. I just didn't think you owned clothes like that."</p><p>"Clothes like what?" </p><p>"Grunge-y clothes." Scully looked her outfit up and down. She was wearing a grey t-shirt, with a black flannel and high waisted dark jeans. Mulder thought she looked amazing but didn't want to seem creepy. They were on the clock, after all. "Well I do. I do own clothes like this. How do I look?" Scully said, doing a little spin. "Great. Erm, I mean you look great for this assignment; you know." Scully smiled softly in response. </p><p> </p><p>"You don't look good," Scully said, continuing her search. </p><p>"Well gee thanks," Mulder said, putting on a mock face of offence. He was a little sad inside.</p><p>"No, I don't mean that, idiot. You always look good. But for this assignment, you don't look good."</p><p>"That's sweet."</p><p>"What is?"</p><p>"You said I always look good."</p><p>"Well you do. It's not like that. You know you're cute. But you're wearing a suit."</p><p>"True," Mulder said, realizing how formally he was dressed in comparison to Scully. Scully then ran over to him and grabbed his jacket and pulled it off him. Mulder was shocked for a second. "Scully? Erm, what are you doing?" </p><p>"You're wearing a t-shirt under that right?"</p><p>"Yeah, I am."</p><p>"Well take your shirt off. I'll get some jeans for you. I have a pair of yours, in your drawer." Scully disappeared off, leaving Mulder happy as he took off his tie. The fact that he and Scully both had a drawer of stuff at each other’s apartments was one of his favourite things. It felt kinda couple-y. He knew it was just practical for two people who did so much together. It still felt nice though.</p><p> </p><p>Scully returned, and handed Mulder his jeans. "Erm, where should I change?" Mulder asked, a little embarrassed. </p><p>"Here is fine. I'm too busy looking for these damn boots to check you out." Hiding a little, Mulder began to change. Scully was true to her word. She was too busy searching through her cupboard to notice Mulder change pants. "What boots are you looking for anyway?"</p><p>"My Doc Martens." Mulder nearly choked.</p><p>"You own Doc Martens?" </p><p>"Yes?"</p><p>"Why?"</p><p>"Don't sound so shocked. I was cool in college, you know."</p><p>"This I have to see. Do you have photos?"</p><p>"Maybe."</p><p>"Scull-eeeeeeee. Please."</p><p>"If you're good on the stakeout."</p><p>"What do you mean?"</p><p>"If you don't go chasing Bigfoot or suddenly discover that our counterfeiter is an alien, then you can come back here after we're done, and I will show you photos."</p><p>"You're inviting me back to your place then?" Mulder joked, but before Scully could respond, she found a bag containing her Docs. She squealed with joy, and quickly pulled them on. They both looked quite appropriate for a bar stakeout, apart from Mulder's work shoes, but he hoped that no one would notice. Scully turned to the clock, saw the time, and made a panicked noise that sounded a bit like "three minutes". She proceeded to grab Mulder's arm and rush them off down the car. They got in, and Scully quickly put on her seatbelt. "Come on Mulder, drive!" she said, getting impatient.</p><p>"What's magic word?"</p><p>"Mulder..."</p><p>"Scully."</p><p>"Please?" And with that Mulder's face softened and he quickly drove off in the direction of the bar.</p><p> </p>
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